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Forums - Sales Discussion - "3DS at 8 millions in the US, better than the DS in the same timeframe"

avais1993 on 19 April 2013

I just bought a 3ds today from amazon, i gotta admit, its a pretty good system, only got mario 3dland so far but its a beautiful game and the 3d is pretty kwl, the only problem wid it i think is the e-shop, why is there no GBA games or snes games



Bradford City Fan for life

Recent favourite games: Ni No Kuni, Fifa 13, Batman Arkham City

Best games of all time: Pokemon Red, Dragon Warrior 3, The last of us, Uncharted 2 and 3

3ds friend code add me: 1950-8131-6814

PSN ID: Mr_Vezzo_Khanny - add to start a clan in the last of us mutiplayer

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the_dengle on 19 April 2013

So either Reggie's information was outdated or he was generalizing, or we've got some downward adjustments to do. Guess we'll have a better idea when Nintendo publishes their financial report.



zorg1000 on 19 April 2013
JakDaSnack said:
zorg1000 said:
JakDaSnack said:
zorg1000 said:
JakDaSnack said:
EricFabian said:
JakDaSnack said:
I still think the 3ds will outsell the DS in its lifetime.


It won't


It's on track too, and this is without a pokemon game or a "3ds lite"

I dont see a huge jump in sales like DS got, i could easily see 3DS selling 15-20 million for the next few years and passing 100 million but it wont reach the 25-30 million DS was doing 2007-9. What do u think 3DS Lite will do that increases sales so much?

pokemon pearl and diamond had already come out, when pokemon x and y come out the 3ds sales will BOOM.  Also, the next iteration will likely have a second circle pad, zl/zr buttons, and have a longer battery life.  both of those combined could make the sales go beyoned the 30 million mark for 1-3 years.

30+ million is stretching it, 25m is possible for maybe 1-2 years. I just dont see a new redesign having the same impact as DS Lite or DSi. Not many games need a 2nd circle pad or 2nd row of shoulder buttons and Pokemon will be huge but i dont think that alone will cause sales to increase over 100% YOY.

Their was no reason to believe that the DS Lite would have caused the DS to explode either, but it did.  And I say 30+ million because I believe that the psp stole some of the DS' sales, and with the vita selling so little, I wouldn't be surprised if the 3ds ends up selling more because of it.  And pokemon is going to sell a lot of units this year, no doubt about it.

The original DS was one of the most ugly systems ever and the Lite looked 100 times better, plus it wasnt just the redesign that helped, but also games like Nintendogs, Brain Age and NSMB. nintendogs amd Brain Age croud is lost to smarthopes/tablets and NSMB was the 1st original 2D mario in 15 years, now its had 4 in 6 years and is no longer "new". U say PSP stole some of DS sales but smartphones and tablets are stealong even more of 3DS sales.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

JakDaSnack on 19 April 2013
Yakuzaice said:
JakDaSnack said:

pokemon pearl and diamond had already come out, when pokemon x and y come out the 3ds sales will BOOM.  Also, the next iteration will likely have a second circle pad, zl/zr buttons, and have a longer battery life.  both of those combined could make the sales go beyoned the 30 million mark for 1-3 years.


If we're talking about the US, Pokemon had not come out at this point in the DS's life.  The 3DS also isn't really on track to outsell the DS.  It is still above the DS for now (well not "now", but as of the end of March), but by next month it will be well below it in the US.  There are seven months (including October) until Pokemon.  In the equivalent time period (Dec-Jun 2007) the DS sold 4.288 million in the US.  The 3DS didn't even do a third of that number in Apr-Oct last year.  If the 3DS performs similarly in that period before Pokemon, it will be about about 2.3 million behind the DS after 32 months.  In order to just temporarily catch back up to the DS, it would need more than 3.11 million in November and December.  That would require a 74% increase YoY.  The streams would also cross very briefly most likely.  In months 35-38 the DS did 4.95 million  the 3DS would have no chance of seeing these numbers in Jan-Apr 2014.

How much do you expect X/Y to sell if you think it will boost the 3DS to 30 million per year?  The 3DS did 14.3 million last year, and is down YoY at the moment.  That would be about a 16 million boost.  Diamond and Pearl didn't even sell that much in 2006 and 2007 combined, so even if every person buying it was a new user it wouldn't result in such a large boost.  New hardware could potentially play a larger role, but I don't see how those two things alone could sell as much as 90 million hardware units over 3 years.

The DS itself only saw one calendar year with over 30 million units shipped, and VGC shows no years with 30 million sold.  I just don't see how you think Pokemon and a hardware revision are going to do this when NSMB, Nintendogs, Mario Kart, Brain Age, and a hardware revision didn't.  Those four games were even bigger than Pokemon D/P on the DS.

I said "could" :P not that it will, but their are a lot of things that would have to happen for it to sell over 30 million, it would just start with pokemon and a new model.



Something...Something...Games...Something

JakDaSnack on 19 April 2013
DietSoap said:
JakDaSnack said:
zorg1000 said:
JakDaSnack said:
zorg1000 said:
JakDaSnack said:
EricFabian said:
JakDaSnack said:
I still think the 3ds will outsell the DS in its lifetime.


It won't


It's on track too, and this is without a pokemon game or a "3ds lite"

I dont see a huge jump in sales like DS got, i could easily see 3DS selling 15-20 million for the next few years and passing 100 million but it wont reach the 25-30 million DS was doing 2007-9. What do u think 3DS Lite will do that increases sales so much?

pokemon pearl and diamond had already come out, when pokemon x and y come out the 3ds sales will BOOM.  Also, the next iteration will likely have a second circle pad, zl/zr buttons, and have a longer battery life.  both of those combined could make the sales go beyoned the 30 million mark for 1-3 years.

30+ million is stretching it, 25m is possible for maybe 1-2 years. I just dont see a new redesign having the same impact as DS Lite or DSi. Not many games need a 2nd circle pad or 2nd row of shoulder buttons and Pokemon will be huge but i dont think that alone will cause sales to increase over 100% YOY.

Their was no reason to believe that the DS Lite would have caused the DS to explode either, but it did.  And I say 30+ million because I believe that the psp stole some of the DS' sales, and with the vita selling so little, I wouldn't be surprised if the 3ds ends up selling more because of it.  And pokemon is going to sell a lot of units this year, no doubt about it.


No, the DS Phat was absolutely pig digusting and scared away most normal people, and I say this having bought the original at launch... It was the first console I ever bought on launch day, in fact.

The Lite came with a price cut, NSMB (best selling game on DS iirc or close to it), and as already mentioned generally stopped being so repulsive.

Regardless, the 3DS's first year was 2 - 3 million ahead of the original DS's if I remember right.


Hehe, I bought mine at launch as well:)  one of the hinges broke off last year:(  I was sad, though it's still playable.



Something...Something...Games...Something

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Yakuzaice on 22 April 2013
spurgeonryan said:

People have been saying this for over a year now though. DS sales are going to explode, DS sales are going to explode! But we are still waiting for this to happen.

3DS is doing great, and to be honest, it is starting to explode itself. Just look at how Luigis Mansion 2 is pushing it. It is something that is still associated with Nintendo, but not Mario, something that is new and exciting!

The games have been coming these past few months and Westerners are finally noticing!

What on earth are you talking about?  DS sales aren't some mystery, despite some people refusing to acknowledge what was coming.  We knew when this would happen, and it has already happened.

Japanese sales

US sales

As you can see, come next month the 3DS will be underneath the DS unless it has some massive sales spike.  It could potentially manage to break above the DS again come December 2013, but it would likely be brief.  The DS managed 8.43 million in the 12 months after the 26th month.  Unfortunately they were launched in different months, so it makes the comparisons messy.  However if we we compare 2013 to 2007, the 3DS is already nearly 700k behind after 3 months.

I don't have a handy chart for Europe, but in terms of shipments after 8 quarters, the DS did 11 million to Others, while the 3DS did 8.99 million.  For sell through after 108 weeks, the DS was at 11.3 million compared to 8.1 million for the 3DS.  The release dates were almost identical in Europe, so the 3DS doesn't have the advantage of the staggered holidays.  This is in April 2007 compared to November 2006 for the US.



gcube2000 on 08 December 2013

3ds now has over 10 million in america so its doing good



kitler53 on 08 December 2013
gcube2000 said:
3ds now has over 10 million in america so its doing good


but not as good..



Mummelmann on 08 December 2013

Still tracking way behind globally, will prbably end up at a little over half of the DS lifetime sales.